Double-Sided (and Double-Duty) Sandpaper

Matt BoleyOct 10

Kill two birds with one stone by making your sandpaper more rigid and speeding up the sanding process with this easy tip.

A single sheet of sandpaper is often too flimsy; the paper backing wears out before the grit. I like to use a double thickness instead, gluing two pieces back-to-back using spray adhesive. Sometimes I’ll even use two different grits so I can switch between grits quickly. – Brad Holden

Disposable Glue Dispensers

Here's a nifty tip—with a nifty tip—from faithful reader Don Ayers: Fill snap-capped sports water bottles with glue and stick them upside down in a hunk of 2x6. Now you don’t have to wait for the glue to run into the neck of the bottle, and the cap will control glue flow (and never get lost!). To holster the glue dispensers, cut holes in the base with a spade bit that’s a smidgen larger than the cap's diameter.
P.S. Be sure to snap the lid closed before returning the bottle to the base. Otherwise the whole bottleful of glue will run out! The snap-cap makes an airtight seal and controls bead size when you squeeze.

Portable Hot Glue Hack

I like to be ready for anything, including making a quick repair with hot glue. But there's not always a handy outlet to plug in a glue gun. So I keep a lighter and a glue stick in my toolbox. I usually only need a little dab to fix something. Melt the tip of the glue stick with the lighter and dab the melted glue on your repair. So keep a lighter and a hot glue stick in your tool bag for your on-the-go, impromptu gluing needs. See 18 more hot glue hacks you need to know here.

Paste Wax Makes Cleanup Easy

My wife and I have developed an arrangement that works out well for both of us. She buys cheap furniture and I get to fix it a few weeks later when it falls apart. I've discovered a way to minimize the mess when regluing joints. Just rub a little paste wax on the finished surfaces next to each joint. Cleaning up squeezed-out glue is a snap because the glue won't stick to the wax. — Bob Clark

Why You Should Lubricate Your Glue Caps and Lids

Caps on certain adhesives/glues, like rubber cement and super glue, have a habit of getting stuck or glued on no matter how hard you try and keep them clean. This can be prevented by simply smearing a little coating of petroleum jelly onto the threads of the tube or lid. You just need a small dab of the petroleum jelly to prevent even more of a mess. Be sure to smear a little bit on before putting the cap back on the glue and it should prevent the cap from cementing on over time. So the next time you go to use your super glue, you'll be able to open it with ease and get right to work! Did you know you can also use petroleum jelly to lubricate squeaky hinges? Here's how.

Use a Straw to Scoop Up Squeeze-Out

When glue squeezes out on an inside corner like in a drawer or the inside any woodworking project, using a chisel has the potential to cause more harm than good. This is because the sharp blade can easily mark-up and scratch the adjacent surface. The solution is a simple drinking straw. We used paper straws because they can be recycled unlike plastic ones. The straw will conform to the shape of the corner and the excess glue will be collected inside the straw so it can’t get re-deposited anywhere else.

Glue Bottle Caddy

Here are four good reasons to build this glue caddy for your shop. First, no more hunting for the right type of glue; they’ll all be right at your fingertips. Second, you can store the containers upside down. That keeps the glue near the spout—no more shaking down half-filled bottles. Third, upside-down storage helps polyurethane glues last longer without hardening because it keeps the air out. Last, the caddy is so doggone handsome. Here’s how to make it:
Arrange all your glue bottles in a circle with 1-in. spacing between the bottles. Add 2 in. to the circle diameter and cut out two 3/4-in. plywood discs. Drill 7/8-in. holes in the center of each one. Measure the various bottle diameters and drill storage holes around the top disc a smidgen larger than the bottles. Glue the discs on a 12-in.-long, 7/8-in. dowel, with a 5-in. space between the discs.

We do everything by our own hands

Easy Drip Cleanup

Editor Travis Larson says: No more scraping hardened glue off your workbench. Before you set up for gluing, lay a sheet of inexpensive, thin painter's plastic underneath. Another nifty tip to avoid rockhard glue on your workpiece is to glue it, then wait two hours and scrape off the excess. The glue is still pliable at this stage, so the job is quick and easy.
Plus: 45 more helpful handy hints to check out.

We do everything by our own hands

Quick, Even Application

Here's a smooth tip for spreading carpenter's glue from reader Cary McAdams. Slide a piece of 1-in. diameter pipe insulation onto a 4-in. paint roller frame and use it to evenly roll on the glue. When the job's done, just throw away the insulation. No more wasting store-bought rollers on a one-time job.

Caulk Gun Clamp

Did you know that you can use a caulk gun as a clamp? It’s perfect for gluing up small projects such as a cutting board. Just place a couple of pieces of scrap wood or cardboard at the ends of the caulk gun and then squeeze the trigger to apply pressure.

Hair Dryer Time Saver

Use a hole saw to drill the hole for the hair dryer. If the drilled hole is undersized, use sandpaper or a rasp to make it just large enough for a snug fit. Then screw the 10-in. boards together to make a right angle. — R. B. Himes
Plus: 17 Ideas for Storing All Types of Tools

Don't Let Glue Freeze

Many adhesives–wood glue especially–can be ruined by just one freeze/thaw cycle, so it's a good idea to store them in a heated space during cold months. Even glue just left overnight in a car can freeze and make it unusable.Can you still use paint that froze?

Corner Gluing Perfection

The Right Amount of Glue

With a little experience, you'll develop a feel for how much glue is just enough. Too little glue creates a “starved joint,” which will be weak. Too much glue makes a mess and wastes glue. With practice, you'll know just how much to apply. You should see a continuous line of small glue beads. When this perfect glue joint sets a little, you'll find it easy to scrape off the jelled excess, and you'll have very little cleanup to do.

Mustard Bottle for Glue

I no longer put up with the messy “over-designed” carpenter's glue dispensers. Instead, I use old mustard bottles; they don't clog and they easily reseal between uses. — Richard Painter

Mix Epoxy With a Can

Use an aluminum can for mi epoxy in a pinch. The smooth metal surface has a concave shape, and it also has a small lip all the way around the edge. Better yet, when you’re done mi and applying the epoxy to your project, allow it to dry. Then the epoxy can be easily peeled off and you can reuse the can for your next glue-mi task!

Repurposed Refiller

If you're in need an easy to make disposable funnel, we have the perfect solution for you. Simply cut off the handle from a gallon water (or milk) jug, and use this to serve as a disposable funnel. This funnel will help you to drain anything from your left over wood glue to the old oil in your leaf blower.

Edge-Gluing Made Easy

These clamps apply pressure horizontally as well as vertically, so the joint edges are wedged tightly together and stay level. To make the clamps, drill 3/8-in. holes (spaced 1 to 1-1/2 in.) along 5-ft. hard maple 2x2s. Then cut two 3/4-in. x 8-in., 20-degree tapered wedges for each clamp. At the hardware store, buy six 5-1/2 in. x 3/8-in. carriage bolts, washers and Wing-Nuts.
To set up the clamps for gluing a panel, slide the boards you're gluing into the clamps without glue. Then push the bolts into the holes, allowing space for the wedges to be hammered in between the bolts and boards. Slide out the boards, apply glue to the edges, and put them back in the clamps. Tap in the wedges while checking along the joint lines to make sure the surface is even.
Plus: Check out some surprisingly simple woodworking projects.

Free Glue Spreaders

Pick up a few free laminate samples on your next trip to the home center and put them to work as glue spreaders, nailing shields, shims, scrapers and spacers. Use them once and you’ll discover a dozen other ways they can improve shop life. Thanks to Ron Kapala for this tip.
Learn how to select laminate countertops here.

Precise Gluing Tool

Oral syringes are perfect for injecting wood glue into narrow crevices for furniture repairs, according to reader Jim Tennessen. Hot water cleans the syringe in a ﬂash.

Moldable Clamps

Reader Robert Cramer showed us a cushy way to make glue repairs on small or delicate objects without having to hold them together by hand until the glue dries. Flatten out a ball of Play-Doh modeling compound; glue your project and press it into the clay. It'll hold the pieces together until the glue dries!
Here's another way to clamp a small project using a common workshop tool.

Disposable Mi Cups at the Ready

Load a Dixie Cup Dispenser ($4 at a grocery store) with 3- and 5-oz. paper cups and keep it handy for all kinds of jobs. Mix epoxy, measure liquids for finishes, hold glue, keep track of parts from disassemblies and hold paint for touchup jobs. Thanks to Dan Allmon for this tip.
Chopsticks work well for stirring, too!

Scrape Glue While it's Soft

At room temperature and average humidity, squeezed-out glue will be ready to scrape in about 20 minutes. Wait until the glue changes from liquid to a jelly-like consistency. Then scrape it off with a chisel or putty knife. If the clamps are in the way, you can safely remove them after about 20 minutes in normal conditions. Handle the glued-up panels carefully, though, since the glue won't reach maximum strength for several more hours.

Glue Up Picnic

A vinyl tablecloth—any size—comes in handy for all kinds of woodworking jobs. Put it under boards you’re gluing together. Any glue drips will easily peel off the plastic surface after they dry. — Kate Gallivan
Plus: Learn how to build a workbench for $50.

Project Pedestal

This gluing pedestal makes clamping from all angles a breeze. Buy a 12-in. pipe nipple with pipe flanges on both ends and screw it to a couple of scraps of 3/4-in. plywood. Cut the pedestal top an inch or so bigger than the project to make clamping easier. Now, with the base of the pedestal clamped on your workbench, you can crank on the clamps from every angle. Thanks to Travis Larson for this handy gluing helper.
Check out this wood gluing guide.

Craft Sticks to the Rescue

Faithful reader Tammy McBride offers this great idea: Craft sticks and tongue depressors are handy for all kinds of shop tasks. Use them to spread glue, mix stain and epoxy, measure and transfer a cutting width, pad those metal vise jaws (hold them in with carpet tape), push putty into nail holes and hold little brads for nailing. Keep them conveniently stashed around your workshop—you’ll be surprised how often you reach for one. Craft sticks are available at craft stores for next to nothing.

Lost Cap? Here's a Quick Solution

No matter how careful you are with the little plastic top for a glue bottle, it always vanishes, sometimes in a matter of seconds. Next time, try a rubber eraser. This rubber eraser fit the bottle as if it were made for it. Thanks to woodworker Dave Munkittrick for this topical tip.

Workshop Skewers

Plug stripped-out screw holes on antique furniture so the screws will grip tightly.

We do everything by our own hands

No-Mess Board Gluing

Tired of scraping dried glue from your workbench and clamps? Shop teacher John Nelson’s no-mess technique also ensures a flat finished surface when you’re edge gluing boards.
First, cover the clamps with newspaper. Then smooth glue on the board edges and lay them into the clamps without tightening. Fold the newspaper over both ends of the panel and lightly clamp 3/4-in. x 1-1/2 in. wide hardwood batten boards above and below each end with C-clamps. Now alternately tighten all the clamps (all the bar clamps first, then the C-clamps). The batten boards keep the boards from sliding up and down as you tighten the larger clamps, so the boards remain in the same alignment as the glue dries.
After 20 minutes, peel off the partially hardened glue on top of the panel with a paint scraper. The newspaper under the tabletop prevents the metal clamps from staining the wood where they touch glue, and it catches squeezed-out glue so the workbench stays clean.

Glue + Sawdust = Wood Filler

When you need wood filler that matches the color of your project, mix some fine sawdust and glue together until it forms a paste, which you can use to fill small gaps and cracks. For best results, use sawdust from the same species of wood as your project; you can get some from the bag on your electric sander. Just don't try this trick for large gaps or patches—they'll stick out like a sore thumb.

Seal Outdoor Furniture Feet

Keep wood outdoor furniture kicking for as long as possible by protecting the surfaces that come in with the ground—especially end-grain pieces. Mix up a batch of epoxy and spread it evenly along the feet of, in this case, a wood bench. Allow the epoxy to dry completely, forming a weather-resistant seal, before placing the bench outdoors.

We do everything by our own hands

Fix Cracks with Floss

It’s easy to coat narrow crevices with glue when you’re repairing a cracked board or tenon on a project. Pour a little carpenter’s glue on a scrap of wood, drag the unwaxed floss back and forth through the puddle, and floss the glue into the crack. Now clamp the crack closed and let it dry. Thanks to Phil Milhelich for this tip.
Furniture repair and refinishing tips

We do everything by our own hands

Tiny Dowel Trick

Round toothpicks work great for locking the mitered corners of picture frames. When each corner is cut and glued, drill pilot holes (the same diameter as the toothpick) from each side of the corner. Apply glue to the toothpick and tap it into the hole. When the glue sets, cut the excess toothpick flush with the frame, and then stain or paint it to match for a nearly invisible fastening job.
Check out other workshop tips and helpers.

Onboard Glue Spreader

For years I used my finger to spread glue beads on the edges of boards. Then, in sweaty haste, I'd wipe my fingers on my pants and another pair of nice jeans would become 'work-only' attire. To make the job less messy, all you need is an old credit card (or new, your choice), a 3/4-in.two-hole EMT conduit strap (about 50? at a home center) and two 1/8-in.nuts and bolts. Crook the conduit strap in a vise to level the conduit strap wings with the bottle cap. This way the credit card stays flat when you bolt it on. Drill a couple of window holes in the middle of the credit card so you can monitor the size of the glue bead, then drill bolt holes in the end of the card, snap the conduit strap onto the bottle cap and bolt on the card. Practice applying glue on a scrap board and in a few minutes you'll get it down (pun intended). Be sure to use fresh glue—the lightly bending card will spread it like butter. Want to get really good at edge-gluing boards? This video and these 10 tips teach you everything you need to know.

We do everything by our own hands

Tape Does the Trick

There’s no better way to clamp wood edging strips to plywood shelves than with pieces of masking tape. Just apply your glue to the backside of the strip and secure it with pieces of tape every 3 in. or so. Always cut your edging an inch longer to save the hassle of trying to align the ends perfectly. The excess length is easy to trim off later with a fine-tooth handsaw.

We do everything by our own hands

Always-Full Glue Bottle

Is your glue bottle half full or half empty? Now no matter how much glue is in the bottle, it seems like it’s full because when you store the bottle upside down in this handy stand. To make it, take a 3 x 3-in. block of wood and drill a 1-1/4 in. hole in the middle a little deeper than the wide part of the cap. Next, drill a 5/8-in. hole for the neck as shown. Thanks to Bruce Kieffer for this timesaving tip.
Check out another gluing tip here.

Spread Glue With a Notched Trowel

When you're gluing large surfaces, an inexpensive notched plastic trowel works great for spreading the glue. To find one, look in the flooring or tile section of the hardware store or home center. If you're fortunate enough to have a pair of “pinking” shears in the family sewing basket, you can make our own spreader from an expired credit card.

Worm Blower Glue Injector

Reader P. J. Mullanney has a novel use for a Worm Blower (a small plastic bottle with a syringe tip used to inﬂate an earthworm so it ﬂoats and attracts ﬁsh). Use a Worm Blower to inject glue when repairing splits and cracks in projects. The air-powered needle tip shoots glue deep into the crack for a long-lasting repair. Just be sure to clean the glue from the syringe tip by squirting hot water through it when you’re ﬁnished.

Big Clamp Stabilizers

These grooved blocks will hold the bar clamps upright so they won’t ﬂop over when you tighten the boards in the clamps.
To make them, use your table saw to cut a 3/4-in. deep slot midway along the face of a 2x4. You want a snug ﬁt for the bar, so stop and test-ﬁt it in the slot as you widen the slot with additional passes. Now crosscut the slotted 2x4 into 4-in. long blocks, press the bars into the slots, and glue that tabletop without the maddening clamp ﬂops! P.S. Slotted blocks work well to hold round pipe clamps, too, as long as you cut extra-snug slots.

E-Z Bottle Caps

A medium-duty E-Z Ancor is the best glue bottle cap we’ve found. The narrow rectangular tip seals the opening of every glue bottle we tried. And the E-Z Ancor is much larger than the cap—so it’s that much harder to lose.

Cauls Keep Glue-Ups Flat and Flush

As you squeeze boards together with pipe clamps, they sometimes arch or slip out of alignment. Pairs of upper and lower cauls are the solution. I lightly squeeze the cauls with bar clamps, then tighten the pipe clamps, then tighten the cauls a bit more… I continue this back-and-forth process until the boards are joined flush and flat.
My favorite cauls are made from 2x4s. I carefully select ones that have a slight bend or 'crown' along the 1-1/2-in. edge, but no twist or warp. The crown is an advantage because it creates extra pressure in the middle of the caul. I label all my cauls with an arrow marking the direction of the crown and the length of the caul.
What's a caul?
If it's designed to spread clamping pressure over a wide area, you can call it a caul.
Check out more clamping tips and tricks.

Flux Brush Applicators

Keep a few plumber’s flux brushes ready for spreading glue on your projects. You can get the brushes in the plumbing department at home centers. (Or buy 12 glue brushes, part No. 875233, for about $4 from Woodworker’s Supply. They’re perfect for brushing on just the right thickness of glue. Bend the handles into U-shapes so you can hang the brushes on the edge of a jar half-filled with water to keep them from drying out. No cleaning needed. Just wipe off the excess water with a paper towel before use. Thanks to furniture maker Bruce Kieffer for brushing us up on this great gluing technique.

We do everything by our own hands

Cinching that's a Cinch

Octagonal, hexagonal and even square pedestal bases for tables can be aligned perfectly for gluing with heavy-duty plastic sealing tape. Cut your bevels on the workpiece edge and lay them with the inside face down and one end butted to a straightedge. Align the bevels so they touch along their entire length and tape them securely. Next, carefully flip them over and apply glue to the joints. Then stand them up, fold them together, tape the final joint and pull the shape together with belt clamps.
Check out a similar glue-up technique used in this DIY project.

We do everything by our own hands

Quick Covers for Handscrews

Handscrews are the pros’ choice for clamping face-glued boards and laminates. The only drawback is that the handscrew jaws can load up with glue, and if you’re not careful, they could become a permanent part of the project! Here’s the solution, courtesy of reader Merle Kilburg:
1. Wrap duct tape or clear packaging tape around the handscrew jaws to keep glue from penetrating and adhering to the clamps.
2. Remove the clamps once the glue is set but still pliable. Use a moist rag to clean the glue off the taped handscrews, or strip off the tape and apply new tape before your next messy job.

Toothbrush Glue Spreader

Old toothbrushes are great for gluing and avoiding a mess. When your toothbrush wears out, put it back into service as a glue spreader. I always use a toothbrush to apply glue to boards for edge-glueing. No more spreading glue with my fingers or chips of wood. The soft-but-not-mushy bristles of an old toothbrush apply glue evenly and quickly. One swipe along the edge usually does the trick, coating the surface smoothly and evenly. Store the brush in a glass of water.

Hard-to-Clamp Repairs Call for Hot Glue

When you need to glue parts that can't be clamped together, hot glue is the answer. Hot glue will set in just a few seconds while you hold the pieces together.

How to Thin Wood Glue

I recently wrote to the Borden company, asking what to do when their Elmer’s wood glue gets too thick to use. They wrote me back and suggested mi in a drop or two of vinegar. It sounded like an old wives' tale, but I tried it and found it really works!
Click here for an easy glue project!